University of Washington

Congratulations to Kyle Rector and Matthew Kay, who were both hooded at CSE’s graduation ceremony. Kyle will be joining the University of Iowa as an Assistant Professor, and Matt will be joining the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor. We will definitely miss them and wish them both well!

The CHiLL Lab welcomed two Ph.D. students this year, Arpita Bhattacharya, who is joining us after finishing her MS from Georgia Tech, and Dawn Sakaguchi-Tang, who completed her MS in HCDE from UW several years ago. We also welcome Laura Pina, who will be joining us as a postdoctoral researcher. In addition, Dr. Kientz is on sabbatical this year and will be working on a variety of new projects, including several technology transfer efforts.

Congrats to Matt Kay and Eun Kyoung, who both received a best paper award on their paper on Lullaby at Ubicomp 2012 this year in Pittsburgh. Eun Kyoung’s other paper on Sensor Proxies was also nominated for best paper. There was also a good amount of press on Lullaby following the conference, including coverage by Innovation News Daily, Mashable, and KIRO FM.

Congrats to many members of the CHiLL lab who completed major milestones over the last few months. Eun Kyoung Choe passed her dissertation proposal, Katie Derthick and Jared Bauer passed their general exams, and Matt Kay passed his qualifying exam. Undergrad Susan Oldham also completed her degree, and she will be staying at UW to get her M.S. in HCDE. Kudos to all!

Julie Kientz and Eun Kyoung Choe attended the Ubicomp 2011 conference in Beijing, China. Eun Kyoung presented her paper on a study on understanding private moments in the home. Eun Kyoung also participated in the Doctoral Consortium.

CHiLL lab director Julie Kientz has been awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation in support of Baby Steps project. The grant, worth $500,000 across 5-years, will fund the expansion of Baby Steps to a mobile and web-based platform that allows integration with social networking sites. It will also fund an 18 month long deployment study determining the effectiveness of the system in helping parents track developmental information.

The CHiLL Lab at the University of Washington has been launched! Research projects are already underway, and we will begin holding lab meetings shortly. In the meantime, if you are interested in getting involved, please contact Dr. Julie Kientz, the CHiLL Lab director.